Changes to Selling Manager Pro column layout

[pocomocomputing]

I use ebay.ca to list and Selling Manager Pro.  Recently, ebay.ca implemented the changes to the columns as was done on ebay.com.  The new format for listings (Active, Sold, Unsold) is very wide and not compact like the old format.

The new format takes two screen widths on my display which is wide 1280 x 1024 pixels. So I have to scroll horizontally back and forth to see all the columns.

The previous display format fit nicely on one screen width with a tiny horizontal scroll, maybe 1/20 of the screen width. I could follow the lines and see and understand all the info presented for a product listing.

The new forum is impossible to use with any productivity in mind.  I cannot relate the listing name to the price on the columns out of site when I scroll horizontally. This new column format is a disaster.  makes Selling Manager Pro useless as a tool.

I  know how to customize the columns and how to change the order and how to hide columns I do not use. I know how to resize the column width.  But  I cannot find a useable combination to display on a single screen width.

This makes Selling Manager Pro useless.

One possible solution is to go out and buy a new super wide LCD display of 1600 pixels wide which may let me see more columns.  But that means changing the video card in my computer to handle the wide LCD.  Why should I pay for a computer hardware upgrade to support eBay's poor design change?

Why do amateurs designers at eBay change things that were working well before?  These designers do not use the product and do not sell.  They have no clue how changes like this ruin eBay for sellers.

I will most likely have to drop Selling Manger Pro because it is useless now as a tool. I may have to go back to Turbo Lister which also has too many columns and widths to fit on a screen but at least it will be free. And Turbo Lister periodically loses the way you have set up the columns and you have to redefine them all over again.

eBay, eBay, eBay, why do you make it so hard to sell on your site? The abuse you heap on your sellers is incredible. One day an alternative will come along and you will beg for your spurned sellers to come back.

Totally disappointed in eBay again and again.

PS If there are any users of Selling Manager Pro with a viable solution to fix this, please respond.

vincenzo, kalvin, any suggestions.  You have to admit this change to SM Pro is downright silly and makes using SM Pro difficult.

The current drive by eBay to spreadsheet like column formats that are too wide for display screens is crazy.  Look at the new Bulk Edit and Relist tool. It has the same issue, too wide to see all the info on a screen width. I have little issue with this as I usually do not change anything but it is too wide for a normal display.

[pocomocomputing]

I have been trying to use this silly new spreadsheet column format and find design bugs.

If you use the My Note feature to have notes on a listing, the Edit link at the end of the My Note disappears if the My Note if the note is longer than the column widths of the screen you set up. My Note does not wrap around to a new line like the old version.  So you have to revise a My Note using the check box and the Action drop down box at the top.

Second, if you customize the order of the columns in Selling Manager Pro and move the PRODUCT column to somewhere other than the default position, your custom setting of PRODUCT gets rest to the default by just looking at ACTIVE listing view in Selling Manager on ebay.com.  I have free Selling Manager on ebay.com and the PRODUCT column is a feature of Selling Manager PRO only.  So it resets my custom column settings on SM Pro in ebay.ca.

Why are settings shared between the two products on the different eBay sites?

Last, I noticed that the Custom Label column allows word wrap of the text in the column box if you make the column narrow.  This would be great if the Title column would allow word wrap.  I could cut the column width in half and wrap to the already blank free space there from the extra line that the current price column takes for putting in the Buy-It-Now underneath. So much space wasted in the display width and the column height.  Less listings per page and more scrolling.

Such poor design on eBay's part.  Any seller that uses SM Pro would be able to tell them in seconds how bad the design is from a usability point of view.

[pocomocomputing]

I have been trying to use this silly new spreadsheet column format and find design bugs.

If you use the My Note feature to have notes on a listing, the Edit link at the end of the My Note disappears if the My Note if the note is longer than the column widths of the screen you set up. My Note does not wrap around to a new line like the old version.  So you have to revise a My Note using the check box and the Action drop down box at the top.

(I forgot to mention that the truncation of the viewable My Note field defeats the purpose of having a note written if you cannot see all of the My Note!!!)

Second, if you customize the order of the columns in Selling Manager Pro and move the PRODUCT column to somewhere other than the default position, your custom setting of PRODUCT gets reset to the default by just looking at ACTIVE listing view in Selling Manager on ebay.com.  I have free Selling Manager on ebay.com and the PRODUCT column is a feature of Selling Manager PRO only.  So it resets my custom column settings on SM Pro in ebay.ca.

Why are settings shared between the two products on the different eBay sites?

Last, I noticed that the Custom Label column allows word wrap of the text in the column box if you make the column narrow.  This would be great if the Title column would allow word wrap.  I could cut the column width in half and wrap to the already blank free space there from the extra line that the current price column takes for putting in the Buy-It-Now underneath. So much space wasted in the display width and the column height.  Less listings per page and more scrolling.

Such poor design on eBay's part.  Any seller that uses SM Pro would be able to tell them in seconds how bad the design is from a usability point of view.

Typo correction and an additional comment added.